


and she plays to win

by ODed_on_jingle_jangle



Series: while your colors bleed [4]
Category: Dare Me (TV 2019), Dare Me - Megan Abbott
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Arguing, Canon - Book & Movie Combination, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Emotional Manipulation, F/F, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Introspection, Manipulative Relationship, Statutory Rape, Strained Relationships, Teacher-Student Relationship, Underage Drinking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:34:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22944856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ODed_on_jingle_jangle/pseuds/ODed_on_jingle_jangle
Summary: Addy wills the anxiety in her chest to settle. It feels easier to believe when Coach’s hands are in hers. Coach makes her feel like she can be a champion. Like she’s more than Beth’s backup, more than a child with wanderlust, more than the size of this stupid town can offer her. Coach makes everything easier to believe when she’s peering at Addy with those eyes, that quiet, smoking intensity.Or she did, anyway.Before a man was dead.
Relationships: Beth Cassidy/Addy Hanlon, Colette French/Addy Hanlon
Series: while your colors bleed [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1617898
Comments: 16
Kudos: 68





	and she plays to win

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, hey, so here is another part of my first Dare Me collection. It might be the last part? Not my last Dare Me fic, oh no, I'll probably write tons more of that! But as far as this particular collection goes in this kind of niche AU I created somewhat accidentally? Yeah, this might be the last one...
> 
> Sooo...okay, assorted details of this AU, for my reference, uh, Colette's daughter keeps her name from the book. Will dies pre-regionals instead of post. Addy/Beth's first kiss was the book version, a borderline sexual encounter as opposed to the sweeter, more innocent rain kiss in the series. Uhh...I guess everything else mostly follows series canon, thus far?

  
“You really rode me about my shoes,” Addy mutters, arms still sore. 

“I had to,” Coach says as she plays with Caitlin’s soft, sparse baby hair. “It’s more important than ever that they see me treating you like everyone else. Like my student.” 

“I’m not like everyone else though, right?” Addy asks, soft, vaguely uneasy. 

“What?” Coach gawks at her. “Come on, I’ve told you over and over how much potential I see in you. How I know you’re gonna do such big things with it.” 

“I don’t mean like that.” Addy crosses her arms, self-consciously kneading at her elbow. “I’m not one of those feelings that’s going to rip through you, am I?” 

Coach’s mouth falls open, a perfect ‘o.’

“Like Will did?” Addy asks, acid in her throat. 

“No.” Coach puts Caitlin down on the cushion and gets up, crossing the carpet and placing a hand on Addy’s cheek. She leans into the touch. 

“I need you, Addy,” Coach murmurs, smiling plainly, her lips touched with a trace of sorrow. “What we have is messy, I know, but it’s real. You were the only person I could call that night. You’re the only person in this world I really trust.” 

“But Matt,” Addy begins, and Coach shushes her with a kiss like raspberries in the sun. 

* * *

All of Sutton Grove mourns Sarge Will and Addy doesn’t know if it’s because he was a genuinely likable guy, or if it’s because nothing interesting ever happens in this town and now a suicide has given everyone something shocking to latch onto. Grief vampires, Beth says. All the grief vampires are climbing out of their metaphorical coffins to cry over Will fallen into his real one. 

Will, who kept blowing up Coach’s phone the way Beth blew up Addy’s. 

Will, who must’ve needed Coach more than anything in his otherwise dismal, empty life. 

Will, who would smile kindly at Addy and offer polite conversation, and once even gave her a few quarters when she was too short of change to get a pop from the vending machine.

Will, who commented on Coach’s strawberry sorbet chapstick once when he came over while Addy was “babysitting Caitlin” and hadn’t the faintest clue that the flavor had been kissed off of Addy’s mouth. 

(right?)

* * *

Matt French is still out of town on his business trip, which means Addy is supposedly at Beth’s house, but actually at Coach’s house. 

Scissoring isn’t Addy’s favorite thing to do in bed, but tonight she welcomes it because in this position, she doesn’t have to face Coach. She bites her lip and stares up toward the ceiling instead, their legs intertwined, hips lifting, soaked satin grinding against soaked cotton. 

They find their rhythm and the fervid friction sets Addy’s skin alight. Addy’s hand drifts over Coach’s thigh as Coach grips her knee. Addy prefers this— the hand on the knee instead of the hand over her mouth. Her clit pulses and her back arches and her eyes remain fixed on the ceiling. 

The first time they slept together after finding Will, Coach was on top and covered Addy’s mouth and squeezed so hard it left a bruise the next day. And the weird thing is, Addy barely noticed while it was happening. Didn’t really register her reduced air intake or Coach’s fingertips digging into her jaw, or even their slick, flush vulvas rubbing rocket fast. 

She wasn’t really in the moment. She was still back in Will’s apartment, beholding his ruined mouth and vacant eyes. The only thing that pulled her back into it was when Coach’s tears fell to her cheeks like warm rain drops. 

Addy asked if she wanted to stop and she didn’t, but she cried even more when she climaxed and clutched onto Addy for the rest of the night. 

Addy is the first to climax tonight. Currents of pleasure ripple through her body and a moan rolls off her tongue, one thankfully unmuffled by the weight of Coach’s hand. Coach’s hips push harder and she grinds against Addy until she reaches her own a handful of heartbeats later. 

Her moans don’t sound like music to Addy anymore, like they once did, these breathless, beautiful melodies Addy was amazed she could bring out of her. Now they just sound stolen. 

Will did this to Coach too. Addy knows, Addy watched. 

Addy sits and scoots to the edge of the bed, tugging down her underwear, irresistibly thinking back to Will’s body. The blood. The teeth. 

“You’re so quiet tonight,” Coach hums, gaze searching Addy as she brushes sweaty blonde strands out of her face. 

“…are you sure he didn’t know?” Addy asks, voice small. 

She doesn’t know why she keeps asking, knowing the answer she will get and knowing that it isn’t a satisfying one. When Coach first came to town, Addy was spellbound by how she seemed to know everything. Everything about mastering cheer, everything about real success, everything about conquering the wide world beyond Sutton Grove. 

But Coach doesn’t know everything, she doesn’t know what was going through Will’s head when he picked up the gun, stuck it in his mouth, pulled the trigger. 

“Of course he didn’t know!” Coach gasps, exasperated. She hops to her feet in huff and paces across the carpet in a restless, anxious stride. “We’ve been through this ten times!” 

“I’m sorry, Coach, I just— I don’t want to be apart of what he did! I don’t want to be why he did it!” Addy exclaims, stomach churning. “I don’t want to be the reason a man is dead!” 

“Oh my god, Addy!” Coach rounds on her, hands cutting the air like a butcher chopping meat. “You have got to stop going in circles over this! You have got to let it go!” 

“How?” Addy asks. “Coach…what we’re doing, I don’t want to believe it’s wrong, but if Will knew—“ 

“If Will knew, he would have confronted me,” Coach says, voice like steel. “He wasn’t the kind of guy to beat around the bush, Addy. He confronted me about my marriage, what it meant to me. If he suspected anything about me and you, I would’ve known.” 

“Okay,” Addy says, trying to believe it. 

Coach puts her hands on Addy’s shoulders, standing tall, her grip firm. “What makes more sense to you? Will killed himself because he was a deeply depressed man who lost his pregnant wife while overseas fighting for a cause he didn’t really believe in? Or Will killed himself because his lover had a girlfriend in addition to a family he already knew about?” 

“I…the first one,” Addy says, although she’s not totally convinced. 

When Coach puts it that way, it sounds pretty simple. But suicide isn’t simple. It’s not always just one thing that pushes someone to do that. Sometimes it’s so many, many things, all building on top of each other to create this monster you can’t escape. 

Addy liked Will. No matter what his relationship with Coach was, even if it made her a little jealous sometimes, he was a nice person. She doesn’t want to be one of those things that made him feel like he had nowhere to go but the end. 

“Right. Even if he did know, which he absolutely did not…” Coach exhales a leaden breath and kneels down, her hands sliding down to Addy’s own as Coach gazes solemnly up into her eyes. 

“…he made a choice. Will and I were friends far longer than we were lovers, even if I wanted to break off our affair, I never wanted to see him hurt. What he did breaks my heart, but it was his choice, Addy. No matter what drove him to do it, it was his choice.” 

Coach tenderly squeezes Addy’s hands. Addy breathes out and lightly tangles their fingers together.

She tries to believe this, to will the anxiety in her chest to settle. It feels easier to believe when Coach’s hands are in hers. 

Coach makes her feel like she can be a champion. Like she’s more than Beth’s backup, more than a child with wanderlust, more than the size of this stupid town can offer her. Coach makes everything easier to believe when she’s peering at Addy with those eyes, that quiet, smoking intensity. 

Or she did, anyway. 

Before a man was dead. 

* * *

Dancing with Beth at the sarge’s tribute party feels like the most natural thing Addy has done in days. She melts into Beth like butter as the alcohol bubbles in her belly. Beth holds her like she needs to be held and in Beth’s arms, she has the freedom to move. 

That’s something that Coach’s arms haven’t offered since Will died. 

They move together as everyone else waves their phones and for a few minutes, everything could almost be like it used to be. Back in the old days, the days they could tell each other anything. 

Addy almost feels like she could tell Beth what she saw. How she still tastes vomit when she remembers his dead eyes. How she wants to fucking cry because it was the worst, most horrible thing she has ever seen and sometimes she swears she can hear the bleached cheer shoes stuffed in the back of her closet screaming at her as if they’re sentient. 

Beth wouldn’t yell at her for crying like Coach did…but she might yell at her for other things. 

And no matter how tempting, things just aren’t the way they used to be, and Addy can’t breathe a word of any of it. 

* * *

“I’m sorry about what I said to you at regionals,” Addy says to Beth as they shuffle through the playground, all the equipment shining silver beneath the starlight. “I needed to get you back into the game, but I didn’t need to do it like that. I was way too harsh.” 

Beth licks her lips. Instead of replying, she wanders toward the swing set. She wraps her hands around the metal support pole and idly twirls around it. Addy follows her and plops down on a swing. She grips the plastic coated chains that hold it up and sways in the seat, scuffling her shoes in the grass beneath. 

“Hey, Addy?” 

Addy glances up. 

“What do her panties look like?” Beth asks, bearing her teeth in a wicked grin. “Leopard print? Lacey white?” 

Addy glares. 

“Oh, well, no, I guess that would’ve been before she had her kid,” Beth singsongs, clucking her tongue. “Gotta be waist-high granny panties for her now. How loose is that pussy, Addy? That butterball of a baby must’ve done a real number on it, huh?” 

“I’m trying to make up with you, Beth, can’t you just…let me do that?” 

“I’m just calling it how I see it, Addy,” Beth says curtly. “She probably killed Will because he got tired of her baby popping bat cave and wanted to move on to fresher meat.” 

“Beth, stop!” Addy springs up from the swing. “She didn’t kill him!”

“She told you that, huh?” Beth hangs from the pole, arms stretched, head tipped back and hair falling behind her in a wavy curtain. “Well if Coach told you she didn’t kill him, then it must be true.” 

“Why are you doing this?” Addy asks, hurt surging in her chest. 

“I don’t know,” Beth sarcastically snorts as if the answer is obvious. 

“Whatever.” Addy turns away from her, looks up to the stars in the sky. “I know her better than you.” 

“No shit,” Beth bites out. “You know her just as well as Will did and look what happened to him.” 

“She would never hurt Will,” Addy snaps, but distantly, somewhere, a small part of her thinks she might be trying to convince herself as well. “You have no idea what his death did to her, how much it tore her up inside!” 

Addy had spent hours holding Coach after the fact. While she sobbed so hard she could barely breath, spine quivering, hands squeezing Addy tight enough to cut off her circulation. 

“She doesn’t love you, Addy,” Beth spits, spinning back upright and letting go of the pole. “You’re just her puppet. She’s using you!” 

Addy chews her lip, everything inside her rebelling from this notion. She has to be wrong. It can’t be true. Coach promised what they have is real. Coach is the only one who sees her for what she can be, the only one who doesn’t dismiss what she wants to be, she can’t— Addy can’t bear the idea of all that being built on deceit. 

“You’re one to talk,” she says eventually. 

“Excuse me?” Beth plants her hands on her hips. 

“I’ve known you my entire life and you’ve spent most of it literally standing on top of me.” Addy cuts the distance between them step by deliberate step. “You’re the one who uses me, you’ve used me a hundred times over.” 

And a mere eyelash away from her, Beth smiles like the cat that’s swallowed the canary. 

“Never in any way that you didn’t want to be used, Addy.” 

Addy balls her hands into fists, blood boiling at Beth, at the whole idea of it, at the acknowledgement deep down inside of herself that in some ways, it is true. 

“How dare you!” Addy snaps. “You’re such a hypocrite. Do you love me, Beth? Or do you just want me to belong to you?” 

Beth inhales a sharp breath, as though Addy’s just struck her. “How can you even—“ 

“No!” Addy cuts her off shrilly, cracking under the stress that’s been mounting since even before she stepped on Will’s teeth, lashing out as her stomach corkscrews and her heart sinks like a stone. “You don’t get to do this. You can’t talk shit about me and Coach, not after you screwed Kurtz.” 

Beth’s eyes widen until they’re nearly bugging out of the sockets. Her bottom lip trembles as her shoulders go rigid. Then her open hand strikes the side of Addy’s face like lightning. Ears ringing, Addy slaps her back. Then they’re shoving at each other, pushing and grabbing, and cursing. 

They’re on the ground and it’s like the fight they had last summer all over again, except maybe the stakes are even higher. Addy tastes blood when Beth’s knuckle smashes into the corner of her mouth. Addy draws blood when she rakes her nails across Beth’s cheek like a cat. 

They roll over the grass in a furious tangle, wrestling against each other, breaths heaving. At one point Addy is on top of Beth. 

For once in the history of their relationship, Addy is on top of Beth, Beth pinned beneath her with saucer eyes and open lips. What Addy really wants to do in this moment— what some part of her never stopped wanting —is to slide her knee in between Beth’s legs. Bow and cover Beth’s lips with hers. 

Beth wants her to. She knows Beth wants her to. Beth reaches up and slides her hand over the base of Addy’s skull, fingers tucking into Addy’s thick hair. All she’s waiting for is permission. 

But the danger isn’t in what either of them wants now. It’s what Beth would want after, what Addy is not willing to give. 

So Addy gets up. 

* * *

Matt French has returned from his business trip. Coach meets Addy at the Dairy Cream and they split a sundae in the back. 

“Remember to puke this up later,” Coach teases, twinkle in her eye. “You’ve got to be in peak form for states.” 

“You know it. Getting to states is the most important thing in my life right now.” 

“The most important?” Coach raises a brow, nudges Addy with her elbow in mock offense. “Hunger is a good look on you, Hanlon.” 

Addy offers a sheepish smile. Before, she would’ve swiped her tongue over the edge of Coach’s mouth and licked up the offending smudge of hot fudge clinging to it. She doesn’t feel like she can do that anymore, though. 

Things are so different since Will died. Every interaction holds more weight. Coach has been different. Addy still loves her, she thinks, or at least loves what they have. This shining, secret, special thing. 

In this way, loving Coach is safer than loving Beth. Addy doesn’t have to come out. Coach would get fired if their love were brought to light, possibly even arrested. What they have is safely theirs, tucked into shadows. It's private. On the other hand, Addy can’t help but wonder how sustainable it is. Coach is a married woman. A mother. Addy’s own mother would never approve of this. Add Will’s death to what was already a sticky situation to begin with and…

“Addy? You okay?” Coach puts down her spoon. 

“Where are we going?” 

“To the state championship, of course.” 

“No, Coa— Colette. Us.” Addy blinks slowly. “Where are we going?” 

Coach purses her lips and shifts in her chair. “I don’t know, honestly. I know this is real. And I know we need each other…” 

“But things are messy,” Addy finishes. 

“Right. I have Matt and Caitlin and you’re a junior in high school.” Coach’s lips twist wistfully. 

“I don’t want to break up,” Addy says. 

“Of course not,” Coach says quickly, grabbing Addy’s hand. “This, whatever it is, we have it for a reason, Addy. I’m not one for destiny, but we found each other for a reason. I truly believe that.” 

“Absolutely,” Addy agrees, despite the uncomfortable flutter in her chest. “I just…things feel different now, y’know? After Will? And with our situation, I guess sometimes I just wonder how long we can keep going.” 

“What happened to Will took me off my pins, Addy, I’m not gonna lie. He worried me sometimes, but I didn’t want to believe he could do that. And I certainly didn’t think I would ever be the one to find him like that.” 

Addy bobs her head.

“Things have been different,” Coach acknowledges. “I think it’s because I’m grieving. Grieving is hard and with Will, it’s like I’m not even allowed to. I have to swallow it all up and pretend he was nothing but an old acquaintance. Just like how in the gym, I have to make you do extra push-ups and pretend that you’re nothing more than my student.” 

Addy spoons some more ice cream into her mouth. She isn’t sure if she feels reassured or rebuffed. If what she feels and what she actually wants are two different things. If it matters, either way. 

Cheer is all that needs to matter right now. Getting to states. Going beyond. 

Maybe they’ll never have a normal relationship, but the thing about normalcy is that once you step in a dead guy’s blood, it pretty much ceases to exist. 

* * *

Sarge Will’s death is officially a homicide. 

He did not kill himself. Someone jammed the gun into his mouth.

That someone could’ve been Coach. 

Addy thinks of an intoxicated, reckless Beth pointing a gun at her in the forest. People do crazy thinks when they’re in love. Supposedly Coach’s love for Will ripped right through her, but the fact that it wasn’t a suicide means Addy can’t trust Coach, plain and simple. 

She doesn’t want to think that Coach did it. Coach wasn’t the warmest, fuzziest person ever, but she wasn’t evil. She couldn’t kill Will, could she? 

No. She was wreaked after his death. She broke down and blubbered like an infant. 

_She was just playing you,_ Beth’s voice accuses in her head, smug as a snake. 

And Addy wants to believe that even less, that Coach doesn’t care or see her like she promises she does. The agonizing possibility that she is nothing to Coach but an asset. 

* * *

Addy has nightmares about Coach stroking her face with the muzzle of a gun. So gentle, so cold. She traces Addy’s cheekbones with it and pushes it past her lips. Pulls the trigger and— 

* * *

“Hey,” Addy mumbles when Beth answers the door. 

“Hey,” Beth says, stepping back to let her in. 

They pad across the carpet, to the couch. Addy sits and hugs a throw pillow to her chest. 

“You can wipe the sad, mopey look off your face,” Beth says as she sits down next to her. “I’m not going to say I told you so about the sarge.” 

“They just said it wasn’t suicide,” Addy says thickly, knot forming in her throat. “They don’t know who did it. It wasn’t Coach.” 

“You’re sure of that?” Beth arches a brow. 

“…no,” Addy admits, covering her mouth with her hand. Almost wishing she hadn’t admitted it out loud. 

“Can’t deny she had motive.” Beth pops her lips. 

Addy wants to tell Beth about that night. About Coach bleaching their shoes. About leaving the dead man’s apartment with their hoodies pulled up. Coach’s refusal to call the cops. 

“I can’t leave her,” Addy murmurs instead.

“You can’t or you won’t?” 

_I’m scared to,_ she thinks but can't speak out.

“It’ll look bad if I do, Beth. It’ll look like I think she killed him.” 

“Do you?” 

Addy looks into her eyes and tries to swallow past the knot in her throat. She finds that she can’t. Beth opens her arms and Addy leans into them instead of speaking, nestling her head against Beth’s collarbone. 

“Don’t worry. I won’t let her hurt you. I’m the only one who’s allowed to do that,” she says wryly, wrapping her arms around Addy and gingerly holding her close. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from A Softer World 789. 
> 
>   
> _Your love is like a red, red rose, in that my grandmother cultivates it to win contests against her friends. (And she plays to win.)_  
> 


End file.
